


Une Dernière Fois

by Armout



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: X & Y | Pokemon X & Y Versions
Genre: M/M, Post-Game, This follows X more than it does Y I think, megashipping - Freeform, perfectworldshipping - Freeform, what are tags, what if nic cage played sycamore in a live action pokemon movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-17
Updated: 2013-11-17
Packaged: 2018-01-01 19:54:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1047928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Armout/pseuds/Armout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Professor Augustine Sycamore finally approached the exact spot in Kalos he had been entirely avoiding.</p><p>Meanwhile, scientist Bryony met the last person she expects- and came to an important decision.</p><p>(A post-game (after the ultimate weapon) jumble of emotions from both Sycamore and Lysandre)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Une Dernière Fois

 

Professor Augustine Sycamore finally approached the exact spot in Kalos he had been entirely avoiding.

 

His steps felt like they were weighed down by lead, and his heart felt the same. He didn't move his gaze from his feet until he reached his destination, and even there he waited many long moments before he could look up.

 

The crater was immense. He felt his heart pound hard and cold against his ribcage as he surveyed the damage. Stones on their side, boulders scattered everywhere, houses tipped over, debris littering the area...

 

_Oh Lysandre... What have you done?_

 

He stared down at the pile of rocks that now clogged the spot where once sat the Ultimate Weapon. _Lysandre is still in there..._ It was reported to him that his fiery haired friend was still inside the structure when it collapsed. It was also reported that he collapsed the structure himself, thus assumedly choosing to go down with it.

 

He didn't know how to feel about that.

 

He bowed his head again, deep in thought.

 

If he heard the light footsteps behind him, he did not react. They came to a stop a few feet besides him, and the professor heard a sigh.

 

"His goals were extraordinary."

 

He did not answer.

 

"Are you going to say anything? At all?" The woman's voice sounded annoyed.

 

"I have nothing to say to you."

 

A few moments passed, and she chuckled softly.

 

"Y'know, he was a fantastic dreamer.  S'pose that's why I followed him."

 

It was obvious that she wasn't going to leave without some kind of conversation, so he slowly turned to look at his company. _Ahh, the green one._ He could not remember her name, but he remembered her power. He knew when she walked up that she was one of Lysandre's scientists, but he did not care enough to see which one it was. It did not matter.

 

"Are you not yet in prison?"

 

She turned her gaze to him from where she was looking at the mess, her goggles gone and her eyes green and vulnerable for the first time the professor remembered.

 

"What a rude way to start a conversation!" She replied. Her once perky hair drooped low on her shoulders as she fingered through it. _Nervous_. He thought _Why was she nervous?_

 

"Why are you here?" He finally asked.

 

"To... To see him one last time." She replied, but it sounded false. The professor was not bothered enough to pursue, however, so it was left at that. "And to... Talk to you."

 

"Why?"

 

"...You must be at least a _little_ curious about Lysandre. His intentions, his purpose."

 

"I know his purpose." He replied sadly. "A perfect world... One only select humans would occupy. Team Flare, specifically."

 

"Good, good." She didn't break eye contact with him. He did. She waited a few moments later for him to keep going, but when it became apparent that he would not, she continued, "He was going to save you, too."

 

Despite himself, the young professor's eyes widened, and he turned again to look at her. "I wasn't part of Team Flare!" He exclaimed.

 

"Didn't matter." She looked serious. "The boss had preparations to save Lysandre Labs, Lysandre Cafe, a base in Dedemille, and your lab." His mind was racing, his heartbeat again felt hard and cold, and his veins turned to ice. 

 

"Why...?" He choked out.

 

"You know why."

 

She looked him dead in the eyes, and he could not look away. Her eyes told him she knew, though he had no clue how, about what he had kept carefully hidden throughout this whole ordeal.

 

This whole time.

 

"Lysandre only wanted to save what was beautiful." She whispered. The professor heard some shouts in the distance, but he paid no attention. She half smiled. "I... think he'd want you to know that." She glanced to her left, towards the trees on the edge of Geosenge, but when he looked he saw nothing.

 

The shouts got closer, and finally they both looked behind them. Two cops and a manectric were running towards them.

 

"Are you...?" The professor trailed off.

 

She smiled sadly. "I'm ready." He stepped back as the cops approached them.

 

"Ms. Bryony Simoneaux?" The cops inquired as the manectric below them growled.

 

"That's me." She turned around, her face unchanging.

 

"You're under arrest for trespassing, theft, gang association, terrorism, disrupting the peace, and endangering the lives of citizens." She held her hands out willingly, and one of the officers handcuffed her. 

 

"Don't forget extortion, heheh." Her smirk was all sass, but her eyes betrayed her. The professor, realizing with a jolt that she came here to give herself up, reached for her arm.

 

"Um. Thanks..."

 

Bryony nodded. "Only doing my job." She hesitated, then leaned in a little closer. 

 

"Don't give up quite yet." She whispered, then the police yanked her away. He watched her go, then turned back to sulk over the place Lysandre lay.

 

"How uncharacteristic of her to say, je me demande..." He muttered aloud.

 

With the absence of anyone else to distract him, the young professor thought back over many memories and experiences that reminded him of why this visit meant so much in the first place. A few moments later and he fell to his knees, and he let the tears he had been holding back flow. A broken man, hunched alone with his hands over his face, and his hair in the dirt.

 

Hours passed.

 

After thoroughly grieving for the first time, though certainly not the last, he stood. He leaned over the crater and tossed in a small nearby flower, watching it land on one of the rocks below, knowing it was one of the many that covered his friend's grave. He opened his mouth, but it was a few moments before anything came out.

 

"Adieu, mon cher ami."

 

Professor Augustine Sycamore finally walked away from the exact spot in Kalos he knew would haunt him his entire life.

 

Behind a toppled house, just out of view, a man in dark rags and a large hat dared a glance at the man walking away. He let out a slow breath, and brushed an orange strand of hair out of his face.

 

"Adieu, mon cher ami," he shakily repeated. " et désolé..." and he slipped away into the woods, unheard and unseen by anyone.


	2. Auparavant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More on Bryony and a certain other important individual.

She was panting, gasping, running as fast as she could from the manectrics and growlithes on her tail. Between the trees she sped, hopping through streams and skipping over rocks to confuse her pursuers. 

 

She heard a loud hiss, and she stopped dead in her tracks, tense and listening. Was it a seviper? She probably couldn't run from one, if it was going to attack her, but she could try to clim-

 

"Bryony, you _moron_ , they will catch you! Get over here!" 

 

She recognized the voice but refused to believe it. However, when she turned around, her suspicions were confirmed.

 

She began to screech, but threw a hand over her mouth at the sound of growlithe's bark in the distance. So instead she silently followed her dead-except-now-not-so-dead boss through the woods and into a shallow cave hidden from plain sight by the banks of a small stream.

 

She nearly cried as she hugged him. He protested of course, but she wouldn't hear of it. Her hair, makeup, everything was a mess, but she did not care.

 

"How...?" She asked.

 

"I doomed everyone in the vicinity to eternal life, did I not?" The man looked solemn.

 

Bryony remembered what the papers had said about the miserable brats' recollection of the story. He had indeed threatened to doom them all with living forever, and threw the switch. They escaped, however, and the weapon caved in, destroying everything there.

 

Including the man himself, presumably. 

 

"Don't tell me..." She whispered.

 

"I have doomed myself." Blunt and to the point like always.

 

She frowned. "Oh, Lysandre..."

 

He was still in the suit he had been crushed in, though it was torn and battered, and his hair was everywhere. His face was scratched and bruised, but not as scratched and bruised as it _should_ have been.  She took in the sight of him and sighed in pity.

 

"Stop looking at me like that."

 

"I- I'm sorry boss, I-"

 

"I am no longer your boss."

 

She looked at him, mouth open.

 

"You'll always be "boss".

 

He "hmf"'d, but did not argue. He sat down on the cave floor with a sigh, and she followed suit.

 

"How has the world been, since this incident?" He asked.

 

"Umm, recuperating, I guess." She answered. "I'm not totally sure, I've been running away this whole time kinda, y'know? I'm the last one... Everyone else was caught." 

 

Lysandre nodded. "What are you going to do?"

 

The scientist thought for a moment. "I dunno." She finally replied. "I was thinking about turning myself in." Her boss looked surprised for a split second before considering her answer.

 

"I can see where that would be preferable."

 

"I can't keep running... And the others are already captured, it's only right." She sighed heavily. "I miss Celosia."

 

Lysandre looked sad. She stopped talking, and they looked at each other for a few moments.

 

"I am sorry." He muttered. The green haired woman decided that she didn't like it when he muttered.

 

She frowned. "You've asked me what _I'm_ gonna do, what about you? The living forever, and junk."

 

He seemed to consider his next words carefully before answering. "AZ has already offered to travel with me. I have considered, though I rather think for now I should be alone. My plan did not work and it is obvious to me now how colossal of a mistake it was."

 

"It wasn't a mistake!" Bryony insisted. "You had wonderful visions! You got carried away, but so did we all. Every single one of us were on board, and we are all equally at fault."

 

The blue eyed man stared at his former underling.

 

"You are very kind to say that."

 

She wanted to change the subject. "I can get you other clothes tonight." she twirled her messed up hair around her fingers, a nervous habit he had noticed in her long ago.

 

"Oh? What happened to being chased?"

 

"I can make it into a shop or two before they notice who I am. It's..." she looked Lysandre over one more time. "...it's worth it."

 

He pursed his lips. "It is not like I can do it myself, true," he replied.

 

"And you are not living eternity in that ratty suit."

 

Lysandre huffed in response, having nothing to say to that.

 

"Just something discreet, that will protect my identity."

 

"Wow, I'd never thought-"

 

Lysandre pointed his finger at her. "Don't even." Her tease died on her lips.

 

"Yeah, whatever." she grumbled. "So, what are you doing hanging around here? This is the easiest place for anyone to find you, isn't it?" They were, in fact, in the forest to the west of Geosenge. She had a terrible sense of direction, but they shouldn't be far from where the ultimate weapon had been.

 

The orange haired man did not answer immediately, and Bryony thought that perhaps he had ignored the question altogether. She had almost forgotten that she asked it when he replied.

 

"I want to see him one last time."

 

The scientist gaped at him. "I don't..."

 

"It is selfish, and I know I have been enough of that already, but I cannot make myself leave unless I know. If that person comes here, where I have diminished, it will be enough just to see his face. I have let him down tremendously, I know. And yet I hope that he does not hate me."

 

Bryony did not know what to say. She did not know who her boss was talking about, or what their relationship entailed, but she had a pretty good idea.

 

"You weren't planning on approaching this guy, right?" she asked. "Cuz that's a terrible idea."

 

He hesitated before answering. "As much as I would like to...no. I am aware of the consequences of doing that." He pinched the bridge of his nose. Bryony replied without even thinking.

 

"...I can relay a message to him for you." Lysandre looked up from where he was staring at his hands.  "To the... professor." she continued hesitantly.

 

His eyebrows scrunched. "I did not mention a-"

 

"You didn't need to." she smiled. "He was the only other professional who you saw as an equal. You knew him only a couple years before Team Flare officially formed, and yet you seemed closer to him than any of our administrators here. And he never even knew." He blinked. "Also, the whole 'saving no one except Team Flare HQ, Dendemille's base, and Sycamore's Lab' thing was kind of a dead giveaway."

 

"...I see."

 

 She had to resist the urge not to laugh.

 

"Do or say as you like, I will not force you. I only ask that you act as if I am dead."

 

"Of course."

 

They were silent for a while.

 

"Rest and eat for now, and then you can go out again at night for clothing and food. I am no longer in need of it, but I am sure you are." She noted with embarrassment that he had indeed heard her stomach growling.

 

"I'll leave an hour after the sun goes down. Wake me then." she said as she made herself comfortable among a makeshift bed of moss and pine needles. The stone was cold and unwelcoming, but she was so tired that she didn't care.

 

 -*-

 

Bryony awoke to Lysandre gently shoving her shoulders.

 

"I thought I would let you know that it is almost eight."

 

"Thanks..." she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. It still felt strange not having the goggles on them. "I'll head out soon."

 

She looked like a mess, but for the first time she did not care. She walked into the Cyllage boutique and wasted no time grabbing some inconspicuous men's clothing from the racks. A black jacket here, a pair of black trousers there, a large black panama hat, sturdy black boots, and a button up, but comfortable dark red shirt. A few undergarments, a backpack, and a hair tie topped the pile. 

 

She pulled out the company credit card, and prayed that it still worked. 

 

The cashier gave her a weird look, but she ignored it as she stuffed it all in the backpack. 

 

The green haired woman walked outside, the comfortably crisp air mingled with the distant sound of the waves crashing against the shore. She considered walking on the beach for the last time, but decided she couldn't afford to lose much time. That, and she hated movie moments.

 

"How much sappier could I get..." she muttered aloud.

 

At the Pokemon Center, she held a greater risk of being recognized. She wouldn't be surprised if her face was on the television on a wanted poster when she walked in. However, whether it was her jacket covering her uniform, or just sheer luck she did not know, but she was able to purchase multiple potions, berries, some rope, a pocket knife, handkerchief, soap, a brush, and any other necessities she could think of and throw them into the over-full backpack. She even threw in a few pokeballs.

 

"Uhh, camping trip." she answered to the cashier's concerned gaze. She paid and left, taking only a moment to glance at the television before she left. Sure enough, the news was still displaying information about the recent Team Flare fiasco. She stopped at a cafe for her last nice meal, then headed back south towards Geosenge, lugging the heavy backpack the whole way.

 

When Bryony got back it was nearly midnight, and she all but collapsed from exhaustion. Lysandre looked through the bag with approval, and went further back into the cave to change. When he came out, she walked over to look him up and down and make sure everything she got fit right. It was weird, taking care of her boss like this, but it was nice.

 

One last thing she could do before she faced days of isolation.

 

"The jacket's nice, you can pop the collar and it covers your mouth and nose area in cold weather or whatever," she informed him. She noticed that he did not have the hat on. When she asked, he replied that it did not fit over his hair.

 

"Did you not see the hair tie?" she asked.

 

"That's what this was?" he replied, and drew the black ribbon from his pocket.

 

"Your hair is your most identifiable feature, right? We can't have you going around with that wild mane all loose, you'll be noticed instantly." She took the tie from his hand and shoved down on his shoulders until he kneeled down. "Something like this..." Her hands worked until she managed to get his orange hair into a ponytail and tie it. She stepped back. It was still spiky and messy, but it looked fine. A large couple tufts in the front refused to stay in the tie, so his hair still had character, but now with the hat on, he looked much different.

 

"There's a knife in there too, so you can cut it or like, shave your beard whenever."

 

Lysandre smiled. It was tiny, and only there for a moment, but she saw it.

 

"Thank you, Bryony."

 

"No problem, boss. Let's go to sleep."

 

-*-

 

A few days passed, each spent watching the crater for any signs of the messy-haired professor. Each evening Lysandre would get sadder, as each passing day without his visit further confirmed his not coming at all.

 

It was during these few days that he confided in his scientist about many things. He would tell her anything from his inspiration for his ambition, his childhood, his pokemon, to even his complicated relationship with Augustine Sycamore. She never knew his boss had such things going on with the man, even if many of the administrators suspected _something_. She took in as much of what he said as she could. This would probably be the last times either of them would have any companionship.

 

She tried to make it last.

 

-*-

 

On the fifth day, around mid-morning, Bryony was just waking up, but her boss's loud footsteps echoed into the cave.

 

"He's here." He gasped. "I wasn't... I was beginning to think..." He swallowed, and straightened himself. "Well, he is here. I am going to go back, but I thought you should know, in case you still wanted to speak to him." She opened her mouth to say something, but Lysandre continued, "You do not have to. Please do not think I am pressuring you into this, it is your decision."

 

Bryony pulled her hair through her fingers, but looked him straight on. "I'm sure. I've been thinking about it the last few days, see? I can't keep running, burden you, or hide... there's no hope for me to start over. I miss Celosia, and I'm tired of not having a hairbrush." She chuckled. "If he's there, I'll speak to him openly."

 

"You will be giving yourself up."

 

"I know."

 

They looked at each other for a few long moments, until the fiery haired man sighed and pulled his hat lower on his face. 

 

"Let us go, if you are ready."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! Wow, now that this is over, I can get to the notes.
> 
> This was originally all one chapter, focusing on Sycamore. At the end, there was gonna be a little conversation between Lysandre and Bryony about her turning herself in. Like, that was it. But then, well, one thing led to another and... the second chapter was born! ... And it's twice as long as the first one...OTL...
> 
> I don't regret it, in any case. It was fun. I'm gonna bullet point from here on out.
> 
> -This was written entirely on iphone notes in classes- up until I uploaded it to proofread it, etc.  
> -Bryony and Celosia are either cousins, or girlfriends. Hmm.  
> -This is my first time writing any of these characters ahhh  
> -If you see any mistakes in grammar or characters or something pl E sae let me know  
> -I know Lysandre's pokemon don't come out at all. Just assume they're all still hurt and such from the ordeal, or maybe he doesn't want to look them in the eye for fear of disappointing them so badly. idk. But he has them is their pokeballs.  
> -This fic is POST-game. A wonderful beautiful PRE-game fic is Captivation by unfoldingbliss. (http://archiveofourown.org/works/1015875/chapters/2042125)
> 
> -This MAY not be the end. Depending on what ideas I come up with, and how much I feel like writing... I almost feel like I could make a multi-chapter fic as a continuation to this. Something along the lines of an actual new plot-line (maybe Zygarde related...). Sycamore and Lysandre would somehow reunite probably idk just- it's a maybe, and I haven't thought it through at all. Just something cool I thought I could do. If you have any ideas, or anything you would like to see in a fic like that, anything at all...? PLEASE message me about it! It will probably inspire me a lot and I will try to utilize every idea I get. ((I'd mention your name in the notes and stuff of course uvu))  
> \- TL;DR: There MAY be a continuation to this.
> 
> -Lastly but not least- Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed, and kudos+comments are much appreciated! <3

**Author's Note:**

> This is chapter one of two! I was going to add a little blurb at the end, but it wrote itself and became MUCH longer than expected, so I decided it fits better as its own chapter. (Psst it's a little more about Lysandre and Bryony)
> 
> This is just a little post-game drabble I guess. See the end of the next chapter for more notes.
> 
> ((psst, this is unbeta'd- if you see any mistakes, let me know!))


End file.
